SERAPHINA (SERENA)

Serena was renamed to Seraphina. Yet, the name was a mouthful and shortened to Finn. Being that her ability to form English sounding words is still in the rudimentary phase, I’m at a loss as to how to best answer that question. Also, I’m not sure that I can provide an update that is warm and fuzzy, the rainbows over waterfalls sort.

Finn loves to take stuffed animal toys, put them between her paws and gleefully separate their heads from their bodies. After she has completed that task and threads are dripping from her jaws, she then proceeds to remove all the stuffing guts from the bodies, one fluffy white gut at a time. Once she has drained the poor little victims of their soft innards, she removes the heart of them, the squeaker. This isn’t the end though. She is only finished once she has squeaked the squeaker 10,396 times.

She likes to surprise you with her ingenuity . She waits until your living room is full of company, then under the shadowed cloak of a partially lit hallway, slinks into your room, steals into your closet and removes your laciest and finest bra from the shelf where it was happy and peaceful. When the conversation in the living lulls, she makes a grand entrance, flips your lacy item from side to side, and plays her best game of keep away. Only after you’ve been humiliated immensely does she relinquish your teeth marked, slobber soaked undergarment. One that you can never wear again, because the supporting wires have been so tweaked that you’d be held aloft, lopsided at best.

Her favorite time to play guard dog is at midnight, at the edge of the woods. She barks as if the hounds of hell were feet from the forest edge, and she is the only hope of keeping them at bay. Even though you call to her, to assure her that it is only the wind whispering through the trees, she ignores you and continues to bark and growl until every hair is raised on her back and yours. You start doubting yourself, and wonder if you can see glowing red eyes peering back at you. Only after you’ve donned your snow boots and jacket and hiked to the edge of the woods does she decide everything is alright. This is something you realize once she has flown past you, back into the safety of the warm house, bumping the locked front door closed.

Practicing her Houdini skills is one of her favorite pastimes. In seconds, she can show you that your toolbox is not secure, as she dances past you, trailing nails out of the container held loosely between her jaws. The bathroom door you thought was shut tight, as you settle in to do your business, suddenly flies open and in she tumbles. She always finds this to be the opportune time to drop her head square into your naked lap. Furthermore, the dryer doesn’t make socks disappear, she does. Her preference is for the more expensive, merino wool ones.

In the middle of the night, she likes to check to make sure that you are alive by sticking her tongue into your left nostril. A string of nearly incomprehensible effenheimers is what assures her that you are, in fact, alive and well.

She likes to help you practice your dancing skills. When you are busy making dinner, she flops down behind you. This way, when you back step, from the stove to the sink, holding a heavy pan, you encounter her sprawled body. This is your moment to double step, cha cha, and twist and turn all while keeping boiling hot liquid from escaping the tilting confines of a heavy pan.

The short answer to how Finn is doing? I would probably have to say the wily fur ball is alive and happily planning my demise in some fashion or another.